1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fetus fixation enhancer for pregnant animals and a diet for mother animals, containing as the effective ingredient a bacterial strain of genus Bifidobacterium having the potential of augmenting secretory-type IgA production (so called IgA induction potential).
2. Related Art of the Invention
During the pregnancy of mammalian animals including humans, usually, a fertilized egg is transferred into the uterine cavity while the egg is repeating cell division, where the egg turns into a germinal vesicle. The germinal vesicle is embedded below the endometrium for organic binding. The status is so-called implantation After implantation, the growth of a fetus is realized. At a part of fixing the fetus on the uterine wall, a placenta is formed. Through the placenta, the fetus can grow while receiving nutrition and oxygen from the mother and simultaneously returning spodogeneous matters to the mother until the fetus is delivered. Thus, stable intrauterine fixation of a fetus is primarily important for good growth and delivery of the fetus.
Because a mother animal may be infected with a variety of infectious diseases during pregnancy, the intrauterine fixation of her fetus may be unstable, eventually causing abortion. For example, the decrease in birth rate due to Rotavirus infection is illustrated. It is because a part of the Rotavirus orally invades into a mother body and growing on the tunica mucosa enters into the blood stream and circulates in the mother body to be then adsorbed onto the uterine epidermis wherein the virus proliferates. Consequently, adverse effects may be brought about on the growth or fixation of an embryo or a fetus.
Except for the therapeutic treatment of infectious diseases themselves, however, there has never been found any effective countermeasure against abnormal growth or deciduation of an embryo or a fetus due to the adverse effects of infectious diseases. From the respect of safety such as the possibility of the occurrence of congenital abnormality due to the delivery of a drug into a fetus, it may not generally be approved that a preventive dosing of a variety of antibiotics to mother animals should be an appropriate measure.